PHILADELPHIA (WHTM) — Of course, nobody was calling it the Liberty Bell at the time. If anything, people were calling it the State House bell. (The original State House is now better known as Independence Hall.)

In 1751, the Pennsylvania Provincial Assembly had something special to celebrate. Fifty years earlier, William Penn had issued the Pennsylvania Charter of Privileges, which would be the framework for Pennsylvania governance until 1776.

  • Shown is the Liberty Bell on Thursday, May 5, 2016, in Philadelphia. (AP Photo/Matt Rourke)
  • The Liberty Bell is removed to Allentown, Pa., for safekeeping before the British occupation of Philadelphia, 1777. (AP Photo)
  • Beside the liberty bell in independence hall, Philadelphia on July 16, 1941, the famed goldfish bowl from which 1917 and 1940 draft numbers were drawn, is turned over for use on July 17, in the new drawing at Washington. From Left to Right are: W.E. Alessandreni, secretary to Philadelphia Mayor; Edward W. Luther (short man without hat), representing brig. Gen. Lewis B. Hershey, selective service director; Capt. Harry O. Richardson, Washington police department; and Capt. Ernest E. Kennard, of the American legion guard of honor, Washington. (AP Photo)
  • The Liberty Bell, symbol of the nation’s independence and Mecca of thousands of American patriots yearly, will receive special protection in the event of an enemy air raid in Philadelphia, as seen Feb. 4, 1942. Guards at Independence Hall, where the famous bell is housed, already have been thoroughly drilled in fighting incendiary bombs and, in another rehearsal, are removing the platform around the bell so that it can be wheeled out of the building to a safer place if necessary. (AP Photo/FS)
  • A surprise air raid would find guards at Independence Hall, shrine of the nation’s liberty, well-prepared to protect the famous structure and the equally famous liberty bell from damage. Guards rehearse their duties in the event of such a raid in Philadelphia, Feb. 4, 1942. Some are assigned spray pumps to be operated both on the first floor and from the balcony above. Others will shovel sand from the buckets shown in front of the bell. (AP Photo)
  • In the event of bombing raids, guards at Independence Hall, Philadelphia on April 23, 1942 will haul the historic Liberty Bell into a secret bomb-proof shelter. The bell has been mounted on a four-wheeled cart to facilitate moving. (AP Photo)
  • This is a close up of the cracked Liberty Bell on display inside Independence Hall in Philadelphia, Pa., Nov. 4, 1965. (AP Photo)
  • While guard continued to conduct tours around the famed Liberty Bell in Philadelphia’s Independence Hall on March 12, 1965, ten young persons staged a sit-down around the bell. Robert Brand, left, in white coat, said the group was the University of Pennsylvania Branch of the NAACP, and added they were protesting treatment of African Americans in Selma, Ala. He said they were wearing black armbands in memory of the Rev. James J. Reeb, Boston clergyman beaten to death in Selma. School children walk around bell and the demonstrators. Guards took no immediate action against the youths. (AP Photo/Bill Ingraham)
  • Part of group of some 30 student civil rights demonstrators are wrapped in blankets as they slept or tried to sleep while keeping an all-night vigil around the Liberty Bell in Independence Hall in Philadelphia on March 13, 1965. The youthful demonstrators, voicing support for the African Americans of Selma, Ala., said they planned to remain at the Liberty Bell indefinitely, with others relieving them. (AP Photo)
  • Crowds fill the area around Independence Hall in Philadelphia, Pa., as they gather to celebrate the 200th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence of the United States, on July 4, 1976. Seen in the center is the pavillion where the Liberty Bell is located. (AP Photo)
  • Children thump the Liberty Bell in Philadelphia, July 5, 1976 as part of a nationwide bell ringing ceremony to celebrate the nation’s 200th birthday. The ringing was one of many activities that took place in the city’s bicentennial celebration. (AP Photo)
  • The Dalai Lama, exiled political leader of Tibet, flashes the peace symbol during his visit to the Liberty Bell in Philadelphia on Saturday, Sept. 22, 1990. The Dalai Lama was in town to address students at the University of Pennsylvania. (AP Photo)
  • Dorothy Height, president of the National Council of Negro Women, taps the Liberty Bell to commemorate the birthday of civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. in Philadelphia, Pa., Jan. 20, 1992. The bell ringing is simultaneous in hundreds of cities and countries around the world. (AP Photo/Chris Gardner)
  • Scott and Kim Willett, of Michigan, take a look at the Liberty Bell Friday, Feb. 6, 1998, in Philadelphia. The building seen through the windows in the background is Independence Hall. (AP Photo/H. Rumph Jr.)
  • Workers use a crane to lift Philadelphia’s Liberty Bell Wednesday, Oct. 8, 2003, in preparation for its move Thursday to a new location nearby. The bell has been in its present location since 1976. (AP Photo/George Widman)
  • Workers slowly place the Liberty Bell in position at its new home in the Liberty Bell Center in Philadelphia, Thursday, Oct. 9, 2003. The Liberty Bell, the cracked symbol of democracy, began a history-steeped procession Thursday, embarking on a nearly one 1,000-foot journey from Liberty Bell Pavillion to its new home at Liberty Bell Center. (AP Photo/Jacqueline Larma)
  • Dennis Redenbach, center, superintendent of Independence Park, instructs from left, Morgan Shank, 17, of Odessa, Del., Kristy Scordino, 13, Jessica Scordino, 13, and D.J. Scordino, 14, all of Endicott, N.Y., on the proper technique for tapping The Liberty Bell in Philadelphia on Monday, July 4, 2005. The four teens are descendants of the signers of the Declaration of Independence and were selected to be part of the Let Freedom Ring ceremony. (AP Photo/Coke Whitworth)
  • After applying protective wax, technician Jonathan Miller buffs the interior surface of the Liberty Bell as part of regular conservation work, at Independence National Historical Park Thursday, June 7, 2012, in Philadelphia. (AP Photo/Matt Rourke)
  • Shown is the Liberty Bell near Independence Hall, Wednesday, Aug. 28, 2013, in Philadelphia. (AP Photo/Matt Rourke)
  • Shown is the Liberty Bell in view of Independence Hall on Thursday, May 5, 2016, in Philadelphia. (AP Photo/Matt Rourke)
  • A full-sized replica of the Liberty Bell sits outside the State Museum in Harrisburg

For years the State House bell (reportedly brought to the colony by Penn himself) hung from a tree behind the building. When a bell tower was being added to the State House in Philadelphia, what better way to celebrate the 50th anniverary of the Charter than getting a bigger, better, and louder new bell for the new tower? (Louder was important — the city was growing, and the sound of the old bell wasn’t reaching some of the new areas.)

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Given Penn’s emphasis in his Charter on rights and freedoms, particularly religious freedom, it’s not surprising the assembly turned to the Bible for an inscription on the bell. Leviticus 25:10 reads:

“And ye shall hallow the fiftieth year, and proclaim liberty throughout all the land unto all the inhabitants thereof”

The inscription on the bell reads:

Proclaim LIBERTY Throughout all the Land unto all the Inhabitants Thereof Lev. XXV. v X.
By Order of the ASSEMBLY of the Province of PENSYLVANIA for the State House in PhiladA
Pass and Stow
Philada
MDCCLIII

(“Pensylvania” with one “n” was an accepted spelling at the time.)

Isaac Norris, speaker of the Pennsylvania Assembly, sent orders to Robert Charles, the colony’s London agent, to obtain a “good Bell of about two thousands pound weight.” Charles ordered it from the firm of Lester and Pack, later known as the Whitechapel Bell Foundry. The cost was £150 13s 8d, or close to £24,000 ($27,890 USD) today.

The bell arrived in Philadelphia on Sept. 1, 1752. It was put on a stand for testing, and with the first stroke of the clapper, it cracked. Either the casting was flawed or the metal was brittle.

Two local founders, John Pass and John Stow, took on the task of recasting the bell. They broke the bell into small pieces, melted it down, and, working on the assumption there was a problem with the metal, added copper to the mix.

The new new bell was tested in March of 1753. The good news — it didn’t crack. The bad news — the tone was…underwhelming. One listener compared it to two coal shuttles being banged together.

So it was back to the foundry for Pass and Stow. The new new new bell was tested in June of 1753. This time the bell’s tone passed muster, and it was hung in the State House steeple later that month.

The bell would be rung on many occasions — so many, in fact, that people living near the State House complained to the Assembly about the noise.

One time it did NOT ring was on July 4, 1776. The Continental Congress approved the final version of the Declaration of Independence that day, but it wouldn’t officially be announced until July 8. On that day, bells rang throughout the city; presumably the State House bell was one of them.

By 1777, the Revolutionary War was being fought in Pennsylvania. After Washington lost the Battle of Brandywine on Sept. 11, the citizens of Philadelphia, fearing the city’s bells would be melted down by the British to make munitions, sent them into hiding. The State House bell spent nine months hidden in the Zion Reformed Church in Allentown. The State House steeple was in bad shape and needed to be rebuilt, so the bell was not rehung until 1785.

It continued in use into the 1800s. Oddly enough, nobody seems to be sure when the big crack happened. Some say it happened during Lafayette’s return to the United States in 1824, others that it was while tolling on the 1835 death of Chief Justice John Marshall, or while celebrating Washington’s birthday in 1846. (It’s also possible it cracked more than once, getting progressively worse.) Certainly by 1846, it was pretty much unusable.

So how did the State House bell become the Liberty Bell? Well, that happened in the 1830s, when the bell was adopted as a symbol of the abolitionist movement. They were the first to refer to it as the Liberty Bell, and the name stuck, especially after William Lloyd Garrison reprinted a poem from a Boston abolitionist pamphlet in his anti-slavery paper The Liberator. The poem, entitled “The Liberty Bell,” pointed out that despite its inscription, the bell did not proclaim liberty to all inhabitants — at least, not yet.

And it’s been the Liberty Bell ever since, reminding us of how far we’ve come, and how far we have to go.